


colour me in

by unrequitedexistence



Category: Holby City
Genre: F/F, berena - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-25
Updated: 2016-09-25
Packaged: 2018-08-17 03:50:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,687
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8129374
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/unrequitedexistence/pseuds/unrequitedexistence
Summary: Bernie changed her mind and turned around. Is it too late? From Serena's POV.P.S. I suggest listening to "Colour Me In" by Damien Rice on repeat.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts), [Ceridwyn2](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ceridwyn2/gifts).



Head against the steering wheel, the irony was not lost on her. To say that she had no idea of what she was doing would be the understatement _of the century_. She was a compass without a north – and she hadn’t simply lost it, it had been ripped away from her and set on fire; it had been obliterated in such a way that no one else seemed to even remember its past existence.

She needed some steering, she _wanted_ some steering, but she was no longer sure she could trust herself with the task. The present day was proof that her living license should be suspended, taken away, _revoked_ … at least until she proved herself capable once more. She would gladly take a test if only it meant she got a guide, some sort of instruction manual, an actual chance at avoiding failure.

Her phone rang on the passenger seat. _Again_. It had been ringing _incessantly_ ever since she had said she would be there ‘as soon as possible’. She had had more than enough time to have made her way there. A thousand times over, really. But now she needed to convince her muscles to move, to convince herself that this was the right thing to do.

 _Was it, though_?

She held her breath until she found herself outside her locked car, knowing that her brain would instantly focus its attention on making her breathe instead of on making her answer, _admit_ , what had been lying on the tip of her tongue. _It worked_. Her survival instinct was still rooting for her… to a certain extent at least, _physically_ speaking.

“I have been calling you.” He said matter-of-factly as he acknowledged the shadow of her presence. “I thought you had lost your way.” He added as he turned around, his eyes focused on the phone that he held as if were a fragile child, not once meeting hers.

“I wish.” She muttered under her breath, following his lead through halls that were foreign enough to feel cold and hopeless, and yet familiar enough to take her back to _the_ moment. “Explain to me again, why exactly am I here?” She said, attempting to distract herself from tripping down memory lane – she had been surprising herself by getting up after every fall, but she knew there would come a point when she would simply lie on the floor until even it decided to push her away.

“She has been asking for you.”

“Did she hit her head?” She tasted the sarcasm as if it truly had substance, only then noticing she had voiced a thought meant to have remained trapped inside the tangled roots of her mind – amongst all the other things she had had to stop herself from professing to the four wings for the sake of her reputation.

“Did something happen?”

“My limbs are still intact.”

He didn’t comment, he didn’t – _thankfully_ – enquire any further. He had remained unresponsive, as if a robot not programmed to deal with more than ‘yes’ and ‘no’ – in binary code, of course. He obviously didn’t _give a damn_ and for the first time in forever she found herself reassured by it, by the deafeningly silent _don’t care_. She didn’t need the pity, didn’t need the blinding glances, the words coming from mouths walking on eggshells… What she needed was to grow a backbone, to put herself first, to lick her own wounds into wholeness before even attempting to access everyone else’s.

“ _Serena_.”

What she needed was Berenice Wolfe to stop saying her name as if it were her one and only anchor to the world. What she needed was Berenice Wolfe to leave and stay gone. What she needed was to believe that last statement to be true and not an implausible alternative reality.

 _You will be my first port of call_.

She didn’t look up at first. She greeted the floor instead, her long-lost friend from days where nothing else had felt real, letting her eyes travel the extent of its solid and reassuring existence.

Her hands tight fists hidden in the safety of the pockets that decorated the coat that would find the back of the closet at the end of the night for being too heavy due to the amount of memories set upon it.

“You could have asked for time off.” She heard herself say as she took a step into the room, the door automatically closing behind her. “You didn’t have to go and break a leg.”

The other woman laughed, even if tentatively, and Serena found herself wanting nothing but to hold onto the sound – as if her life depended on it, knowing it to be true.

Bernie had indeed frightened the life out of her. It hadn’t been the kiss _per se_ , it had been the walls it had unveiled. Sure, the _woman factor_ had come as a surprise, but it had soon become more of an excuse than anything else. Serena had been frightened because she had found herself to be head over heels in love. Everything had happened so quickly and yet so naturally, it had felt so wrong and then _so right_ … and then Bernie had approached her, holding her freedom and independence in a glass, and had made a toast that offered answers to unvoiced questions that had no reason to be in the first place.

She had never been afraid of heights, but now that she was free-falling she found it hard not to simply close her eyes and ignore the gushes of air overflowing her lungs.

“How are you feeling?” She had never celebrated a flat tone before, but she could have thrown confetti at the moment, opened an expensive bottle of champagne.

“It hurts to laugh.”

 _Then why did you request the presence of the joke?_ Unfortunately she was aware that the real question was why the joke had come running.

_I can recognize the symptoms._

“You should have asked for Hanssen instead.”

“ _Persona non grata_. He must be drowning in paperwork because of me.”

Serena avoided the sharp intake of a breath that would have had her boarding the fastest train destined to wreckage. _What about me_ , she wanted to ask, to _yell_.

“His middle-name is protocol. Rest assured he won’t be taking it personality.”

“Thank you for coming.” The blonde whispered after a moment of silence so heavy Serena could swear the ceiling had dropped a couple of inches.

“Don’t mention it.”

 _Please don’t_ , _don’t thank me for being here when we both know there was never another option on the table_. _Please don’t, don’t thank me for taking part in a moment I wish had never come to be_.

“ _Serena_ …”

“My my, if it isn’t the sound of trouble.” If she had happened to bite her tongue by accident she would have died of hopelessness poisoning.

“I’m sorry.”

The sincerity was sharp-edged – it sounded more like an excruciating cry for help than an apology. Again, Serena couldn’t help but answer, her eyes finally meeting the image of the woman that had earlier that day become a fleeting blur of color – something she had thought to be permanent.

Serena felt the wind being knocked out of her at the sight. She suddenly realized she hadn’t been told exactly why Bernie was at the hospital. Marcus had told her on the phone that she had broken her leg but he hadn’t explained _how_. The blonde was covered in bruises and Serena had to fight her every muscle not to reach and attempt to kiss them better. _Kissing_. She bit hard on her lower lip.

“What am I doing here, Bernie?”

“I came back.”

“What?”

Serena raised an eyebrow, confusion written all over her face.

“I came back. I changed my mind and I turned around… in the middle of a crosswalk.”

The smile now gracing Bernie’s face took Serena right back to the moment before the blonde had kissed her for the first time. It was almost shy, _affectionate_ , a white flag being raised to despair.

“You were run over?”

 _Guilt_.

“I thanked him.”

“You did what now?”

 _Disbelief_.

“I thanked the driver.”

“What are you on about?”

 _Bewilderment_.

“Everything became so clear the moment I hit the floor. I prayed for another chance of making you smile, of making you laugh until you’re breathless, another chance of kissing you senseless… another chance of _feeling_ alive.”

“Bernie.”

 _Warning: approach with care_.

“I love you, Serena Campbell.”

“I think you might have a concussion. Should I call for-” She was interrupted by Bernie’s hand tugging her wrist. She hadn’t even realized she had moved closer in the first place.

“I am in love with you, Serena, and you too frighten the life out of me because you are so dear to me and wherever I go I leave a trail of pain behind...” Bernie had to stop to catch her breath. “I have never met anyone as candid and as beloved as you. People count on you, lean on you… I didn’t want to destroy that.”

“What changed?”

“There will be no trail if I stop running away.”

Serena looked down at their joined hands for a moment, sighing deeply before looking back up at the blonde.

“Bernie. I asked you to stay. Actually, let me rephrase that, I _begged_ you to stay. _Loudly_. In the middle of my ward. And you, you walked away, you _left_ me.”

“I only left your sight. I can promise you that, Serena, I never, not even for one moment, left you.”

_You can still have a future, just don’t let the past dictate it._

“If you ever do that to me again, Berenice Wolfe, I swear to God I will find you a secondment in hell and I will drive you there myself _.”_

“I love you, Serena.”

“So you have said. Clear your schedule for the next couple years, you might have to carry on saying it till the end of times.”

“That was always my plan.”

“You are a major idiot, Berenice Wolfe.”

“You can say that again.”

“Oh, don’t worry. I am sure I will.”

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by a review written by Ceridwyn2. Couldn't say no to the dialogue that immediately started playing in my head. Thank you Ames78 for reading through it and for unintentionally giving this story its hopeful ending.


End file.
